Wajig: Packages and Administration

Wajig
is an interface to many Debian administrative
tasks. It consists of two interfaces: wajig is a command
line interface and gjig is a Gnome interface.

Wajig commands are entered as the first argument to
wajig. For example: "wajig install gnome". On the
other hand, gjig has buttons for many of the commands,
whilst also allowing commands to be typed directly.
Gjig is also self documenting, providing extensive
documentation as tooltips.

The word jig has a couple of meanings, as WordNet and
Webster's 1913 Dictionary will confirm. It is a small machine or handy
tool used to guide other tools. It is also a quick dance, generally an
old rustic dance involving kicking and leaping, as well as a light,
humorous piece of writing, especially in rhyme, a farce in verse, or a
ballad. "A jig shall be clapped at, and every rhyme praised and
applauded!" For wajig, `wa' is Japanese, indicating
`harmony' and `team spirit and unity.'

Written in Python, wajig uses traditional Debian
administration and user tools including apt-get,
dpkg, apt-cache, wget, and others.
It is intended to unify and simplify common administrative tasks.

Wajig
has evolved over many years and there's an ever
growing band of users.
It has been rewritten from its original shell script to be a
Python program. It is available under the GPL.

As wajig is simply my frontend to various other commands the
goal of this chapter is more than simply demonstrating how to manage
your system with wajig. Wajig
may not be
the answer you are looking for and that is fine. Where ever I
illustrate a procedure with wajig I will often indicate the
underlying commands that are being used to effect the
wajig command. You can then use these underlying
commands directly if you prefer.